Level-Up Bonuses

[Bhoop]

Hi. My name is Bhoop. I found Andor's Trail a few years ago, but never really played much because I had few hours of free time. I've got more wiggle room now, thank god, and found myself wondering about optimal level-ups due to high experience needs. I did read around a bit about how to use optimal skill points and stuff, but I didn't find anything about level ups. So I'd thought I'd make a topic and post all my questions here before starting anew again.

1) Is it worth getting Bark Skin at level 12? Since Increased Fortitude is recommended at level 5 and Regeneration at level 10 for the first two skill points, as well as for skill points at level 16/20. If It is worth getting Bark Skin, should I put everything into block chance as I level up to eventually get all 5 Bark Skin levels?'

2) (related to #1) Is damage resistance overrated? Or is it actually really good? I think early game it's good, but I'm not sure at later levels?

3) Why is dual wielding so good? I don't really understand this. I'm not even sure why sword/shield and two-handing is even bad?

4) Increased Fortitude does not have a max level, should I stop increasing it after level 20, or should I put more into it? Same with Regeneration?

5) If there is an optimal way to use level up points, could someone point me in the right direction, or point me in the direction of a guide?

I'm sorry if the answer is clear cut, but I'm super confused after reading a lot on these forums, especially with abbreviated and initialized stuff.

[JonLin]

Personally I have never put points in regen or barkskin. As for fortitude no more than 3 points at most.

[Tomcat]

Regarding dual wielding - once you get all the relevant skills maxed, dual wielding can currently give you a better combination of high attack chance and attacks per round, resulting in higher average damage per round, than you can get with any single weapon. Especially if you use two fast weapons for which you have proficiency skills.

There is an effort going on to revise the combat system to make different builds more balanced, so this could change in the not so distant future.

[rijackson741]

2) DR is very good against small amounts of damage (early game), less good against large amounts (late game), because you can't get enough of it. It gives you no protection at all against nasty conditions that monsters can inflict on you.

3) Dual Wield gives you high AC and AD, but you pay the price of losing the benefits of a shield. Which way you go is a matter of choice. Note that you can't get the benefits of dual wield until you are relatively high level though, so you have time before you make that decision.

5) Nope. It depends on which direction you want to go. The only firm rule is to take IF, and then don't use level ups for HP.

[Tomcat]

On DR, I think that the benefits might still be useful later in the game as well. I have a hero with 8 DR, all from gear, and my experience with the Hirathil ghosts and the graveyard was that it took many more hits before I needed to pause for a potion than my previous builds, which generally had 0 or occasionally 1 DR.

To be fair, I did not do the math - this is just my impression, that it felt more useful than I had expected at that point in the game.

I still doubt I'd bother much with Bark Skin - early on there are more important skills to focus on, it seems to me.